


Stone by Stone

by Ashesintheair



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 01:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2250834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashesintheair/pseuds/Ashesintheair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Joanna's death, Tywin struggles to find purpose to his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stone by Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tywinning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/gifts).



The cliffs of Casterly were a difficult place for Tywin to be after that day - the black day. It was supposed to have been a day of joy and celebration and it had turned into the end of his life. Not in actuality, of course, but it had felt like it for a long time afterwards.

When people had spoken of grief, of an aching hole inside, he had never fully understood what they meant. Now he did, oh so very well. Not a hole, but a great jagged rent through his being, draining the light out of the world, leaving him empty and crippled somewhere that no one could see.

He wasn’t without feeling. There was the son who would carry on his name, the daughter who looked too much like her. The love he had for them was battened down inside, tightened in his face and eyes, but there nonetheless. And there was the disdain for the monster that had killed Joanna. He couldn’t outright hate him, though he would like to. The Imp carried her blood too. Hate was too easy and too simple.

There was the cold purpose of being head of House Lannister and that meant more to him than anything else. The least he could do now was establish a great dynasty in her name, with her blood.

He had visited the cliffs once, and Jaime and Cersei ran, jumped and cavorted all over the bluffs. It had been a place he had shared with Joanna, when they were younger and their ambitions for Westeros had been calculated and daring. He thought those plans as much their child as any of those with flesh and blood. The calculation, the logic of it was his, but the wild daring and the great leaps of faith that came with it was all Joanna, through and through. That black period immediately after her death he had not known what to do with those plans. It seemed that it was falling around him, stone by stone.

That one trip to the cliffs reminded him what he owed her… and that stones could be piled up again, just as easily as they had come crashing down. It was an epiphany but one that broke down the facade of composure that he had carried since her death.

He didn't dare visit the place again.


End file.
